Hindus may be among the most prosperous people in the US but they rarely assert their religious identity.

Manu's children

Business Standard

M K Stalin might not have his father's charisma, but he has learnt the ropes the long, hard way.

The chosen one

Commercialisation of treks is slowly leading to the exploitation of the fragile ecosystem. Abhishek Bhati treks through Roopkund to give a first-hand account.

The long and winding dirty treks

Unless he manages an economic miracle, the assassination of Osama bin Laden will be the biggest achievement of Barack Obama&rsquo;s presidency. If there was doubt on that score, Mark Bowden&rsquo;s book &ndash; released just ahead of the Presidential re-election &mdash; will set them at rest. He squarely credits Obama with not only reviving the hunt for bin Laden but taking the politically risky decision to send a special ops team to take him down.

No easy days

Jharkhand has contributed some very famous, proud sons to India. Birsa Munda&rsquo;s anti-British struggle is chronicled in history. The other great leader of the Jharkhandis was Jaipal Munda. Shibu Soren, or &lsquo;Guruji&rsquo; as he is known, inherited Munda&rsquo;s legacy as an indefatigable fighter for the tribesmen after Munda died.

Is a legend but has to be led

Protests against rape and molestation of women have swept the country after the heinous rape of a 23-year-old girl in New Delhi on December 16. There have been marches, candlelight vigils and demonstrations. Industry association Ficci set up a taskforce on safety for women which will work towards developing a National Safety Policy for Women to be adopted by the industry.

Is she safe?

Barely two months after 9/11, Tony Fernandes, then a vice- president at Warner Music, acquired AirAsia from a Malaysian government entity for a token amount. For the struggling airline, it was virtually a rebirth. Whether it was the mega sale of free tickets, or last monthâ€™s $9.4billion order for 100 Airbus A320s, AirAsia has been making headlines regularly â€” all for the right reasons.

India remains distant for AirAsia

Do yourself a good turn: do others a good turn. Used to be, that was sage advice for souls seeking solace from wise monks who might or might not have sold their Ferraris. Today, itâ€™s good marketing strategy, good business strategy. Everywhere, a new breed of business writers and CEOs is churning out authors espousing the virtues of doing business for good.

Wanted: A global group hug

    Ratan Tata, while announcing the pullout from Singur in 2008..

Answers to last week`s quiz (#287)

    In 1974 a co-founder of this company got excited by a feature on the Altair 8800 computer published in the December edition of the Popular Electronics magazine. He took this to his best friend who was then a Harvard undergrad and had the skills to code a programming language for this machine.

The Strategist Quiz (#288)

The top 10 business bestsellers

Many organisations tend to walk a &lsquo;safe&rsquo; path by plotting their innovation graph as continuous improvement of what they have delivered well. However, this can only lead to slight process or product improvement; it can rarely catapult an organisation to an entirely new league.

Disrupt to innovate

As I write this, I am watching Pakistan whip India in the Kolkata ODI and I am struck by the similar stories of our cricket team and e-commerce in India .

Boom.Bust.Boom

Much as markets evolve, so do consumers. To stay relevant, marketers must keep in constant touch with these changes in the market place as well as their consumers&rsquo; behaviour. Quite often though a part of this learning is unlearning what you thought were the rules until now &mdash; letting go of ideas that may have worked wonderfully in the past but have no relevance in the future. Here are ten marketing rules from 2012 that may not apply this year.

Those marketing lessons? Unlearn 'em

Overcoming a round of resistance in July, a determined government and the broadcast industry finally made sure that the top four metros fell in line with the digitisation mandate before the end of 2012. While the next round of 38 cities present a bigger challenge, the changes in viewership as a result of a whole new world of genres on the TV set are likely to be the focus of much analysis and discussion in the coming year.

When TV crosses the digital divide

When Walmart founder Sam Walton was asked what he thought of the recession, he said, â€œI thought about it and decided not to take part.â€ Flippant as he might sound to those struggling through the economic downslide, there is wisdom in his words. The truth is that creative advertisers spend their way out of a recession, coming out of it ahead of the competition, both in terms of profit and market share.

The worst of times is the best of times to incubate brands

Authors Chris Zook and Nikhil Ojha say the ground will continue to move under our feet.

Don't fight the future

On the face of it, demerging a Rs 280-crore division into a separate unit may hardly seem to make sense, but Marico, the maker of brands such as Parachute and Saffola and promoter of services business Kaya, has had its reasons for doing so.

Kaya ready for a facelift 

Adidas is hoping to make a fresh start in India &ndash; literally. In an attempt to recover from its troubled past, the German sportswear maker is now gearing for a &ldquo;Fresh Start Campaign&rdquo; for the Reebok brand in India.

Reebok set for 'Fresh Start'

A beautiful girl pines for mangoes and is satiated with a bottle of Maaza. The Har Mausam Aam campaign for the largest juice drink in the country created quite a stir last year with ads showing how people (and even gods) could be appeased by it. Owner Coca-Cola drove home the point that with a Maaza, a mango lover&rsquo;s desire for the fruit, can be fulfilled at any time of the year in whatever circumstance.

Version two of the mango drink for all seasons

Aleksej Aleksandrov of Belarus won section A of the 11th Parsvnath International with 8 from 10 games. He was followed by Marat Dzumaev, Henrik Teske and Vaibhav Suri who all managed 7.5. Untitled 13-year-old Murali Karthikeyan scored his first GM norm. IM K Rathnakaran made his second GM norm and Rakesh Kulkarni made an IM norm.

Chess (#1028)

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